Somewhere on the outskirts of reason... Or where good beer can be found.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Straitocruiser ‘Revolutions’ (advance copy)

Someone asked me what I used for blood in the picture with Chloe and Preston after a WWE style “Last Kid Standing Match”. The pic, by the way is under the TUESDAY, APRIL 04, 2006 blog entry. For reasons behind my comprehension, they thought that I would use real blood for realism.

Uh… He’s five. He doesn’t like to bleed or feel pain.

That will come when he hits the teenage years and hopefully without the garish “Goth” look.

I used ketchup everybody. One, like the common packets of ketchup from any fast food joint that can easily be found in my refrigerator.

And I plan on teaching Preston how to make his own fake blood with Karo Syrup and food coloring. Remember to add a hint of brown for the most realistic faux (that’s French Stina) blood.

My cousin Dan Lively and I found the recipe for the phony red stuff one summer where most of the family came together for a common cause… Building my Grandmother a house.

Dan and I would purchase Vampire Blood brand and it got too expensive because we always used too much. Karo and food coloring were the best alternatives and quite economical too. You could make a quart for two dollars.

The family all came together for a cook out. There were dogs and kids running everywhere until nightfall.

The family watermelon came into contact with Dan and me… It was found with a knife stuck through the rind and into the meat. Phony blood coming from the wound and dripping down the sides. Grisly and yet somehow funny. It was simply dismissed by the elders with a “those guys” comment and a shake of the head.

Dan and I helped in the building of my Grandmother’s house. We did the small gopher like things and kept things tidy. But, there was a lot of down time between duties and we put our new faux blood to good use.

My grandmother’s house was built on the outskirts of Union, WV on Highway 3. The only other main road into Union is 219 and there was good traffic flow without a whole lot of danger. Dan and I staged faux-bloody fights 10 to 15 feet away from the road.

We would put red Karo on our faces and on our knuckles making believe that we were collecting lacerations. Every so often, we would spray a mouthful when we looked as if we were taking one on the chin.

We never stopped traffic but I do remember a four-door sedan with four older folks slowing down to get a good look at the show. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they saw two pre-teen kids pretending to beat the hell out of each other in front of a house being assembled by a group of men not giving a damn about anything except hammering nails.

Hopefully, they passed on a story about what they saw.

Dan and I have always done crazy stuff. We didn’t really do it to be noticed. We did it to be funny and have a good laugh. We amused ourselves and that’s all that mattered. Check out his website... www.danlively.com

And despite your attempts to help me with html and links... I still cannot do it. Lay off me, dammit!